


Promise

by HashtagLEH



Series: Something Like a Family [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Billy Finds Out About El's Powers, Billy Hargrove & Eleven | Jane Hopper Friendship, Billy Hargrove Being an Asshole, Billy Hargrove Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove Is Bad at Feelings, Billy is caught in the crossfire and knows it, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Abuse, Eleven | Jane Hopper Needs A Hug, Gay Billy Hargrove, Gen, Maxine "Max" Mayfield Needs a Hug, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Pre-Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Protective Billy Hargrove, and by that I mean Neil is racist, and the lab, but she will in this series, eventually, further warning about that in the author's note, he'S in denial though, he's ready to smack a few bitches over that, she won't get it in this fic though sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:40:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27516244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HashtagLEH/pseuds/HashtagLEH
Summary: “Billy?” He immediately recognized El’s voice, shaky through the phone. She sounded like she was crying. Billy was instantly on alert.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Eleven | Jane Hopper & Billy Hargrove
Series: Something Like a Family [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009263
Comments: 5
Kudos: 147





	Promise

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: the whole racism-based warning between Billy and Max is dealt with in this segment. Period-accurate derogatory language is used, but no specific slurs. There is also the brief mention of a hanging as Billy imagines what Neil would do if he found out about Lucas, but it is a single, non-graphic sentence. If you want to avoid the conversation altogether though, read until it talks about Billy getting to his car after school, and then come back after the next break marked with "***". All you need to know about it is that Billy is freaked out that Neil will find out about Max hanging out with Lucas and he warns her away from it but doesn't personally care himself (because my Billy is not racist). Suffice to say he's acting out of fear of possible consequences for him, Max, and Lucas. It's not the main point of this segment, but I wanted to include it so that I could get in his head more with his feeling trapped by Neil and Max, and then to clarify later on that evening why Max is upset with him.
> 
> Also I bumped the rating a little but I'm not sure it really needs it. I did just to be safe because of the language and some of the things Billy thinks about.

Steve Harrington was fun to mess with, Billy decided. He had swooped in at the Halloween party, beat King Steve’s keg record, and gone over to gloat about it, but the guy had literally not seemed to care at all, just chasing after his girlfriend toward the punch bowl. He got a rise out of him the next day at basketball though, smack talking during the game and winning a slam dunk out of it. He was disappointed when he went chasing after his girlfriend mid-game, but he tried not to examine his reasons for that.

He couldn’t help remembering the feel of Harrington’s back against his chest later in the showers though, and he forcefully pushed the memory of that feeling away. He hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, because crowding was part of the game, but now he _really_ didn’t need to be thinking about it with a bunch of other guys in the locker room with him. He focused on Tommy H’s voice instead, because it was annoying and persistent enough to kill any sort of libido that might arise.

After basketball he practically ran into a somewhat familiar-looking girl at his locker, and after a moment he recognized her as that girl he’d met last week before starting school, whom he’d promised a ride to in his car. He figured it was as good a sign as any, and flirted with her before settling on plans to drive her home after school. It was a wordless agreement that they would stop somewhere on the way for some fooling around. He figured if he tried hard enough, he could be attracted to girls one day, and she was as good of a distraction from Harrington’s legs as any.

Max didn’t show up after school for a ride home, and he had warned her the day before not to be late again, so he decided fuck it and got in the car with the girl – Jennifer, he thought her name was? – before peeling away.

As he drove past the middle school though, he saw a familiar curly head of hair at the bike racks, and he almost slammed on the brakes because what the _hell_ was El doing out in the open like this? Was something wrong? Was she looking for him, maybe? No, that didn’t make sense – she would have gone to the high school if that were the case. But why had she left the cabin all on her own?

He caught himself from the abrupt movement though, because there was someone else in the car with him and he had promised that he would keep El a secret as long as she wished, so he couldn’t let on that he’d seen anything strange or out of the ordinary. He forced himself to keep driving, deciding that he would check in at the cabin later to make sure she was alright.

When he got back home later that evening though, Neil was angry that Max hadn’t returned with him, and that he didn’t know where she was, and after a quick backhand (which was almost nothing, with Neil), he was set to work with chores around the house and in the garage, mostly unpacking the heavier type things that Susan didn’t get to. Max returned around nine, and when Billy made some comment about heading out for a bit, Neil took his keys from him and said that he couldn’t have them back until morning, when he took Max to school. As the cabin was a half hour drive away, Billy decided that he would have to pop in the next night instead. Neil and Susan were leaving for the weekend, after Neil got off work, so he could just wait until then so that no one could really stop him. It made him antsy, to have to wait that long, but there was nothing to be done about it with Neil so close on his ass.

He distracted himself the next day during school, teasing Harrington in basketball again and ignoring the voice inside that told him he needed to back off before this turned into anything potentially problematic. Tommy H was sticking by his side again throughout the day, which was annoying, but it meant he heard the gossip when Tommy did that Wheeler had run off with that creepy Byers kid, and that she and Harrington were definitely over now. (He tried not to be too pleased about that, because it didn’t affect his life anyway.)

He tried being casual, when he told Harrington not to worry about Wheeler. He could tell the guy was upset, which oddly grated at him, and he wanted to let him know it got better, or – some shit like that.

Tommy jumping in and gloating about it was annoying, because freckle face was obviously trying to goad Harrington into something because he was bitter about their friendship breakup the year before or something, and Billy really wasn’t trying to rub it in Harrington’s face, despite what Tommy seemed to think.

When Tommy left, Billy tried again, telling Harrington not to take it too hard, but he caught sight of that one mole on his neck as he spoke and accidentally let slip the “pretty boy” comment, which made him more than a little nervous that the other guy would get offended and spit “faggot” at him or some shit, so he quickly followed it up with, “Plenty of bitches in the sea.”

He turned off the water, just to make Steve look at him rather than being distracted with being busy washing his hair, so that Steve could see the smarmy grin Billy pasted on when he said, “Am I right?”

_I obviously love girls and boobs, nothing to see here, nothing to worry about, I like chicks as much as you do, see?_

He needed to get out of there then, because his mind was racing and both of them were naked and mostly alone and even though Harrington was giving him this sort of flat glare of disgust that didn’t mean anything to the ideas that were going through Billy’s mind.

He gave Harrington a slap on the shoulder – _bro slap, not a homo, nothing to see here_ – and walked out to go get dressed, calling, “I’ll be sure to leave you some!”

He really needed a smoke.

***

He was sufficiently distracted by Harrington and thoughts about him for most of the day, which was both a blessing and a curse. He couldn’t do anything with the guy – especially because he was so obviously straight as an arrow and nothing would come of it anyway – but he also didn’t have to think and wonder about El for the rest of the day, which was good because if he thought too long about her he might just ditch school, and he _really_ didn’t need Neil on his case when he found out he’d ditched class.

He wasn’t in a particular rush after school, not having plans until Neil and Susan would leave in a couple of hours, but he was still gratified to see that at least Max was on time this time – he saw her walking out the doors already when he got to his car.

But then he saw who she was _with_ , and his blood ran cold.

He didn’t personally care who Max hung out with. They were all dweebs, in his opinion, and it wasn’t like he had to listen to them or hang out around them. But he knew Neil would care – and Max _should_ know, but apparently she just didn’t care, because there she was in broad daylight talking with a black kid her age that he was pretty sure he’d seen before. He just hadn’t connected that she might be making _friends_ with him.

She seemed to be arguing already, and he leaned against his car, holding an unlit cigarette in one hand and deciding to just watch for now.

At first he wondered if maybe he had been wrong, and that she was trying to shake him off and didn’t really care about him, but then he noticed that she seemed to be really upset and even hurt, whatever she was saying. That meant that there was some sort of friendliness there and she was probably feeling slighted somehow.

After saying something angrily to him, she turned and started walking toward his car, and he pushed aside whatever it was he was feeling that was definitely _not_ concern about her being upset, focusing instead on the fact that she was being a damn _idiot_ hanging around that boy where anyone could casually mention it to Neil, putting _Billy_ in hot water for not watching her more closely.

She came up to the passenger side, and he moved, going around the front of the car as he called, “That kid you were talking to. Who is he?”

“He’s no one,” Max said, failing to hide her upset tone. _Lie._

“No one?” Billy repeated with a look over the top of the car at her. She quickly looked away, going to open the car door.

“This kid from my class,” she said like it didn’t matter, like _he_ was the one being weird asking her about it.

She got in the car, but Billy watched the kid walking away for a moment, seeing as he turned back to look after Max, and made it a point to memorize his face.

Clenching his jaw as he got into the car, he slipped the cigarette between his lips and then lit it, letting Max sit in the quiet for a minute before he demanded, “Why was he talking to you?” As though it really mattered.

“It was just about a stupid class assignment,” Max muttered, looking out the window. _Lie._

“Then why’re you so upset?” They may be nothing more than people who happened to live together now, but they used to be somewhat close and so he _knew_ her – why was she acting like she could get away with hiding anything from him?

The words were hardly out of his mouth when Max was insisting, “I’m _not_!”

He heard the quaver in her voice that she could never fully hide when she was close to tears, and for a moment Billy wasn’t thinking about Neil, or the fact that the kid was black – he was only thinking about the boy in general terms, and how _dare_ he upset her so much that she was on the verge of tears?

“He causing you trouble?” he demanded, the words slipping out without his permission. His tone was threatening, which was good because she would probably interpret it as a threat toward _her_ , even though he was really thinking about taking a shoe to this _other_ kid’s ass when he said it.

“Why do you care?” Max said, wobbly voice becoming stronger as she began to get angry instead. _Good._

“Because, Max, you’re a piece of shit, but we’re family now, whether we like it or not, meaning I’m stuck looking out for you.” His voice went quieter at the end as he remembered Neil, remembered him saying that he needed to look out for Max now, that it would teach him some _“respect and responsibility”_ , and maybe even keep him too busy to be a fag if he was lucky. It was a reminder that Billy was responsible not only for his own actions, but also Max’s, and that if Max stepped out of line it was Billy’s fault and Billy was the one who would be punished for it.

And letting Max hang out with a black kid? Billy suspected he’d get a beating just as bad as when Neil had found out he was a fag, and he could survive it, probably, but it would be easier to just avoid it entirely and get Max to hang out with literally _any_ other kid in the school. This was the Midwest; most people here were white. Why did Max have to make it difficult and hang out with what must be the _only_ colored person in that damn building?

Max began to make some sarcastic comment, and Billy snapped, grabbing her arm just below the wrist with an angry, “Hey!”

Her eyes were wide and nervous when she looked at him, and he tightened his grip when she tried to pull away, because she just wasn’t _getting_ it, and had she always been this stupid?

“This is _serious_ shit, okay?” Billy told her severely, trying to get her to understand the gravity of what he was telling her. “I’m older than you.” _I’m the one that gets in deep shit for this, not you._ “And something you learn” _—something **I** had to learn from the wrong side of a fist—_“is that there are a certain type of people in this world that you stay away from” _—Neil doesn’t care if they’re black or they’re homo or they’re Russian; they’re **all** undesirables—_“and that kid, Max…” He yanked her closer again when she tried pulling away, denial already on her face. “That kid is one of them.”

He yanked again when she pulled away stronger. _I’m doing this for him as much as for me, shithead._ “You stay away from him, you hear me?” _No one wants a hanging here._ “Stay. Away.”

He finally let her go with a shove, feeling angry and trapped and doubtful that she would actually follow his orders because she never did. He shoved the cigarette back in his mouth, ignoring Max as she curled a little against the door and did a terrible job at hiding her crying. He failed at that as much as he failed at ignoring the sick feeling in his stomach at making her upset, but it needed to be said. She was terrible at lying, and at keeping a secret, and even if she got better at it hanging around that kid and trying to keep it from him, someone else would casually mention it in Neil’s hearing before too long and then they were _all_ fucked.

He threw the car into reverse, trying to get the imagined mental image of Max’s bloodied face and broken body out of his head if Neil ever found out.

He failed at that, too.

***

Billy was antsy to go check on El, but apparently when Neil had said that he and Susan would be leaving once he got back from work, what he really meant was that they would be leaving after dinner. That put his plans back by at least an hour, maybe two, depending on what Susan decided to make. He couldn’t let on that he was antsy though, because then Neil would see it as disrespect and wouldn’t leave without a few parting blows to remember him by over the weekend.

So he did his homework in his room, and even volunteered to help Susan with preparing dinner so that it could hopefully get done faster. Max didn’t look at him while they sat down to eat dinner, but Billy didn’t care because he was just trying to hide the fact that he kept glancing at the clock as it crept closer to six o’ clock and the sun disappeared. Thankfully, Neil was too busy talking with Susan about what they might do over the weekend to notice that Billy was distracted.

After dinner, Max went to her room and a moment later her music was heard through the thin walls. Billy went to wash up the dishes without it being mentioned, and Susan and Neil went to their bedroom to pack for the weekend because apparently Neil hadn’t thought to do that in the forty minutes his wife was making dinner.

He was packing up the leftovers in a bowl when the telephone rang, and he heard Susan call from hers and Neil’s bedroom, asking him to get it. With a sigh, he set down the plastic wrap on the counter and went to the hallway, unhooking it from the wall.

“Hargrove residence,” he said in a pleasant voice, because he knew Neil was listening to be sure he was polite or some shit.

“Billy?” He immediately recognized El’s voice, shaky through the phone. She sounded like she was crying. Billy was instantly on alert.

But Neil was still within earshot. If he sounded concerned at all he would come out of his room requesting – _demanding_ – that he know who was on the other end, and get in his business to know what was going on and who Billy was hanging out with.

So he said in an even, disaffected voice, “Yep.”

She paused for a moment, probably confused, but then she went on, voice still tearful, “Come to the cabin? Need help.”

A thousand possibilities ran through his mind at that, and none of them were good. An injury, fear, maybe Hopper had done something, he didn’t know but at the moment it didn’t matter because he just needed to _go_.

But Neil was still listening.

“Yeah,” he said easily, like he was talking to a stranger, “No problem.”

He hung up before he could hear El’s response, wishing he could’ve said something reassuring, like that he would be there soon or for her to sit tight, but he couldn’t let Neil know that anything was wrong because then he might not be able to get out of here quickly. He didn’t know how El had gotten his number, because he was pretty sure they hadn’t made it into the phonebook yet as they’d lived there for barely a week, but he didn’t give the thought more than a fleeting moment, just calling out to Susan (and Neil), “Wrong number!”

Biting the inside of his lip anxiously, he went to Max’s room before the kitchen. He knocked once and then opened it without waiting for a response, seeing Max hunched over on her bed and doing her homework. She looked up with a glare when he entered.

“Hey, you about ready to go?” Billy called over the music, affecting a bored tone for Neil’s benefit down the hall. She looked confused and a little wary, but before she could respond he was shutting the door behind him and quickly coming closer so that he could talk quietly and still be heard over the music. He ignored the lurch his heart gave when she flinched a little at his close proximity – probably a delayed reaction to El’s tears.

“I need you to pretend I’m taking you to a friend’s house to do a class assignment,” he told her, hiding his antsiness to get _out_. “I’ll give you five dollars for the arcade or some shit.”

Her wary look was replaced with an evaluating one, a familiar one that said she was willing to accept a bribe, on her terms.

“Ten,” she bargained, crossing her arms.

He didn’t have time to argue. “Fine, fine – get your shoes,” he agreed hurriedly, ignoring her surprised look at his immediate acceptance as he turned to finish putting away dinner.

Neil was waiting in the kitchen when he got there, his packed bag clear in the living room. Susan wasn’t out yet, probably finishing her own packing.

“Where are you headed?” Neil asked in a deceptively light voice.

“Dropping off Max at a classmate’s place to do some group project,” Billy said, wrapping the plastic wrap around the bowl and then opening the drawer it was kept in and putting the box away.

“Who is this classmate?” Neil said, still lightly but – to Billy at least – unmistakably demanding.

Billy turned to the fridge, moving some of the food aside to make a space so that he could put the bowl in next to it and trying not to let on how tense he was at turning his back to the older man. He tried to think of how to answer, because the only person he’d ever seen Max with was that black kid, and besides the fact that he didn’t know his name, he wasn’t about to blurt _any_ of that out to his dad.

Then he suddenly remembered – Wheeler had a little brother that was about Max’s age, didn’t she? That was a well-to-do family that Neil would have no problem with Max being around.

“Wheeler, I think,” Billy said, rising up from his crouch and closing the refrigerator door. “They have science together.”

“You ‘think’?” Neil repeated, raising a daring eyebrow at the phrasing, and Billy wanted to kick himself that he’d said it like that, that he’d as much as admitted that he didn’t know who Max hung around, which went directly against Neil’s wishes for him to keep an eye on her.

“If you really don’t know, you need to be keeping a better eye on your sister, son,” Neil said in a voice full of warning.

Billy bit back the retort that he wanted to let fly, that she wasn’t his sister, and just nodded his head and said, “Yes, sir.” He didn’t want to delay getting to El at _all_ , and back talking to his dad was just asking for it.

Neil raised an eyebrow at Billy’s lack of usual argument, but then Max appeared from the hallway, backpack slung over one shoulder and expectant look on her face.

“I’m ready,” she announced, and then to Neil, “I have a science project due on Monday, and it’s a group one with a couple other classmates.”

Billy could see the obvious tells of her lie, the ones that always made him surprised that Neil didn’t pick up on them.

But then, he’d always known Max better than Neil, so perhaps it wasn’t _that_ big of a surprise when he just smiled at her and said, “Well, have fun then, Maxine.”

Max nodded in agreement, and Billy wanted to tell her to stop fiddling with her backpack strap because one day Neil was going to realize and he’d _know_. “I’ll see you Sunday night,” she said.

Neil’s smile would probably look pleasant to everyone else, but Billy could see the careful control the dangerous man held, and looked away, going to grab his jacket and keys from his room. When he returned Max was pulling away from hugging her mom, who had come out apparently to bid her farewell before going back to her room to finish packing.

“Remember to look out for your sister, Billy,” Neil called as Billy opened the front door. He paused to let Max go out first, glancing back to nod at his dad.

“Yes, sir,” he agreed, and closed the door on his father’s look of intent warning.

“So,” Max said once he was speeding down the road toward the arcade to dump her off at before going to the cabin, “What’s so important that you had to get out of the house so quick?”

“None of your business, shitbird,” Billy said, glancing at the clock on the dash. It had been six minutes since he had hung up with El.

Max huffed in annoyance and folded her arms. “Well, I’m gonna find out _eventually_ when you get wherever we’re going.”

Billy gave her a look incredulous enough to let her know he thought she was the stupidest person alive. “I’m dropping you off at the arcade, or did you forget the ten bucks you’re squeezing out of me?”

Max blinked, surprised. “I thought you just meant ten dollars in general,” she admitted. “Not necessarily for tonight – it’s already dark out.”

“And it’s not even six yet, so quit your whining,” Billy sneered. “I have stuff to do and don’t feel like carting you around with me – what’s wrong with going to the arcade?”

“Nothing, just…”

“Well, then quit complaining!” Billy interrupted harshly. He was thinking about El, and worrying about what might be wrong and if she was hurt, and so Max’s yammering was grating on his last nerve.

“I’m not! What the hell crawled up your ass?” Max scowled over at him. Before he could retort, she demanded, “Are you meeting up with someone to go make out? Because I don’t think anyone will want to get _near_ your face when they see how pissed you are.”

Billy almost swerved off the road with the surprise and anger that overtook him, certain that Max was trying to subtly dig at the fact that she knew he was a faggot. He caught himself in time, and shot a furious glare to his absolute _bitch_ of a step sister in the passenger seat, grabbing her tightly by the arm as though she would escape if he didn’t.

“If you are trying to _blackmail_ me into telling you what I’m doing tonight, Maxine…” He began to threaten, but Max’s eyes went wide and she cut him off immediately.

“ _No_!” she insisted, putting up her hands and sounding so startled by the idea that Billy almost believed her. She didn’t try to pull away, saying, “I wouldn’t _do_ that to you, Billy, I swear!”

“No?” Billy curled his lip and tightened his grip on her arm, only half paying attention to the road, he was so angry and so _terrified_ at what Max could do with what she knew. “Just like you wouldn’t share a secret about a boy in my room with Neil?”

“That was an _accident_ , Billy – I didn’t know he was home!” Max insisted, pulling at his grip on her arm. “Let me go, you’re hurting me!”

Billy let go with a shove to hide how the words burned at him, but he didn’t calm down in the slightest as the streetlights appeared in the more populated center of town.

“Don’t _bullshit_ me, Maxine,” he ordered harshly, putting his now shaking hand back on the wheel opposite the other one. “You tell _anyone_ why we really had to move…”

“I won’t – I _wouldn’t_!” Max insisted, a quaver in her voice. “You think I _wanted_ Neil to try and ‘beat the gayness’ out of you?! You’re my brother!”

“I am _not_ your brother,” Billy hissed, clenching his hands around the steering wheel. “And you are _not_ my sister. Get that through your thick head before I have to beat it into you.”

“I don’t care that you like boys, Billy!” Max exclaimed, tossing her hands in the air in anger and exasperation. “And I’m not going to go reporting it to Neil either because despite the fact that you’ve been a real _asshole_ lately, I’d _really_ rather not see you with a busted face again! So, siblings or not, stop blaming _me_ for the fact that Neil is a bastard piece of shit!”

He pulled up at the arcade then – finally – and he dug into his back pocket for his wallet, pulling out a couple of fives and shoving them harshly in her direction.

“I’ll pick you up later tonight,” he told her unforgivingly, just wanting her to get out of his damn car. “Stay out of fucking trouble.”

“Whatever, asshole,” Max scoffed, getting out of the car and slamming the door behind her. He tightened his lips and peeled away, seeing in the rearview mirror as she flipped him off before going inside.

He shook his head to himself. He supposed it was inevitable, getting into a heated argument with her after what had happened after school, but still it had _not_ been in his plans and now he was even more upset as he headed to the cabin.

_You’re hurting me!_

He grimaced at the memory, and leaned over to reach into his glove box, grabbing his box of cigarettes and digging one out. He lit it with shaking hands, wishing for alcohol instead, but he didn’t want to do that without knowing what he might be facing in regards to helping El in the next few minutes. Cigarettes would have to do for now.

He arrived at the cabin about thirty minutes after getting the call from her, which was pretty impressive considering that that was the expected time it took to get there, but he’d also gone out of his way to drop off Max and still made the usual ETA.

He wasn’t thinking about that though as he jumped out of his car, seeing that there was again no police car there, and he had to wonder how often Hopper actually _was_ home, if he was gone again now. Or perhaps he’d just run off after making El upset enough to track down Billy’s phone number and ask him for help.

Whatever – didn’t matter right now, Billy decided as he tossed the butt of his cigarette into the wet leaves and stepped over the trip wire. What mattered was that El was alone and _crying_ , and so he just stomped his way quickly across the yard, reaching the front door just as it flew open.

“Heard your car,” El said, and as his gaze tracked over her face, looking for signs of pain or bruising or something, he noted that she looked calmer now than she had sounded on the phone. Her eyes were puffy and red, though – she had definitely been crying.

El stepped aside to let him inside, and he took the wordless invitation, noting that all the lights were out, except for what appeared to be an emergency lamp sitting on the table.

The cabin was small enough though, that despite the fact that he couldn’t see the details of the room like he had when he’d showed up on Halloween, he could see enough to know that the place was _trashed_.

There was glass _everywhere_ , littered on the ground and over the furniture. Most of it seemed to be from the windows, but some of it was porcelain and painted clay, like mugs had been thrown just for the purpose of breaking them. One of the curtain rods was hanging crookedly, a floor lamp was knocked over with the shade askew, and everything seemed like it had been shoved apart haphazardly like obstacles were being gotten rid of to make room for large movements.

It looked very similar to Billy’s room, any time Neil got in a particularly destructive mood.

Immediately Billy was grabbing her – gently, carefully, but very quickly and with purpose. He tugged the sleeves of her oversized – _grown man’s_ – flannel up to expose her arms, looking for finger-shaped bruises or cuts from the broken glass littering everything because if things had been thrown at her then she was just a little kid and something had surely injured her.

He found only pale, smooth skin though, and received a bewildered look from El, who didn’t resist against the careful movements.

“What happened?” Billy demanded tensely, holding her wrists in his much larger hands. He pushed away the opposing, yet parallel memory of how he’d held Max’s wrist tight enough to bruise earlier that night, and the niggling thought that Max was only a few months older than El.

“Got mad,” El said simply, her eyebrow creasing a little at the memory.

She didn’t look upset, exactly, but still Billy had to clarify for his own peace of mind – “El, _who_ got mad? Did Hopper do all this?”

El shook her head in denial though before Billy could get too fired up. “No – I did. Was accident.”

Billy blinked, releasing her wrists and glancing around at the destruction once again. “ _Accident_?” he repeated, because a broken dish here or there he could understand – even a window, if something had been thrown through it. But this level of destruction suggested a systematic tantrum, and El really didn’t seem the type to do that.

Also, he noticed oddly, the glass from the windows seemed like it had all sprayed _inward_ , like they had been smashed in from the outside.

“Not important,” El said dismissively, going over to the couch and a file box sitting beside it.

But Billy wasn’t going to let her get away with that, and he followed after her. “Not _important_?” he repeated again, voice rising a little. “Kid, you called me _crying_ and asking for help, and I show up to what looks like a whole gang having broken in and trashed this place, and Hopper gone _again_. If that’s not the problem, then what the hell did you need me help for?”

El looked over at him, expression guileless in a way that didn’t quite reassure Billy that nothing was wrong here.

“Was sad,” she said simply. “Found Mama.”

Billy stared for a moment, feeling his temper rise at everything he’d been through over the past forty-five minutes because the kid had been _sad_. He had risked a beating with Neil, gotten in that argument with Max and lost ten dollars to bribe her away for a bit, rushed over her like a damned maniac, having visions running through his head the whole time of a broken little girl, injured or scared or both, and she’d been _sad_?

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Billy swore, rolling his eyes. “You know the shit I went through to get over here as fast as I could, thinking this was some damned emergency?” But then her last statement clicked, and the implications of it settled, and he felt like there was a lead weight in his stomach. “You found your mom? Was she – lost?”

El seemed as willing to move past his frustration as he was, which was good because if he had a heart he would probably feel bad about scolding her so harshly for calling him for help when it seemed to be about more than mere sadness.

In answer, she gave him a file folder, and he gave her a look because this was very vague and mysterious and why couldn’t she just explain it to him?

“What is this?” he asked her, not opening it yet.

“Mama,” El said, motioning to the file. Which, he supposed was a valid response because she didn’t seem to have an extensive vocabulary and it probably would be faster – and _easier_ – if he just read it himself.

So he flipped it open, looking over what seemed to be old newspaper clippings and reports, and – holy shit.

He sat down as he read through everything, seeing the pictures of a woman he had to admit had a fair bit of resemblance to El, looked like an older, blond version of her with longer hair. He read about experiments in the sixties and lawsuits and the eventual dismissal of any claim before anything cut off. The woman – her name was Terry – insisted that her baby had been stolen, but there was no proof that it was anything more than a stillborn. There was a little blurb about Terry breaking into the lab where she’d once gone for experiments, but no charges had been filed and she seemed to disappear.

After he was done reading, he looked over at El, who at one point had sat next to him on the couch while she waited for him to finish.

“And you think this is your mom?” he clarified.

El nodded, and passed him a picture that she’d pulled from her pocket at some point. He looked down at it to see Terry walking beside the man who had run the experiments on her in the sixties, and didn’t understand until El pointed at the man and whispered, “Papa.”

She said it like it was a secret, and Billy abruptly remembered the first time he’d met her. _You have bad Papa, too,_ she’d said. _Hop saved me from bad men. Saved me from Papa._

And if this quack scientist had been her “Papa”, suddenly a _lot_ of things about this whole situation made sense. Hopper, being a supposedly “good” man who still didn’t think to get El some actual _girl_ clothes. Having to stay locked in this cabin while Hopper went to work, with only the TV for company. Not allowed to visit any friends that she might have made before she was locked away. The countdown, of how long it had been since she had lived at the cabin. The excitement over the simple act of being around other people. The Morse code that they used to communicate, so that no one heard that she was alive. This lab had been government sanctioned – if anyone knew she was alive, then the government would know it too and might want her back. Even her stilted speech would make sense, if she’d been experimented on her whole life with no room for socializing. He ran mentally through everything he had learned about her in the last week since knowing her, only two times of actually interacting with her, and the way it made so much _sense_ was almost painful in its surety.

He felt a sudden surge of protectiveness rise up in him for this girl – this _little_ girl who had been through so much shit and hadn’t gone just _crazy_ like anyone else would have done in her shoes. He wished he could do something for her to make it better, to make her happy. He suddenly understood Hopper’s desperation, his insistence that she stay here because here, where no one knew about her, she was _safe_. Lonely, yes – but he could understand how someone who knew all this had reached the conclusion that safe and alive was better than risking that to be with her friends.

He pursed his lips and shoved those feelings aside though, because no one needed to deal with that, least of all him. Also, the government would surely find out eventually, so he didn’t altogether _agree_ with keeping her shut away, despite understanding the desire to do so. She may as well live happy while she could, surround herself with friends who could defend her – or at least try, and give her a little bit of hope.

“So your name is Jane,” Billy finally said. “Why ‘El’, then?”

El blinked at him thoughtfully, and then reached down to tug at the sleeve on her left arm that had fallen down. She turned her wrist, and Billy looked down curiously, seeing the birth mark he’d glanced over in his earlier inspection of her arms, and –

That wasn’t a birth mark. He resisted sucking in a shocked breath, staring down at the tiny tattoo of digital-looking black letters that said _011_.

“Eleven,” he realized. “El.”

Swallowing against the fury that wanted to rise at the dehumanization inherent in marking and naming a child by a _number_ , he looked back at her and said, “That’s fucked up.” Then, realizing belatedly how that statement might be taken, he said, “Which do you prefer?” Because as fucked up as the reasoning for it was, it was still what she had been called her whole life and she might want to reclaim it for herself, and he wasn’t going to stop her if that’s what she wanted.

She shrugged though, letting her arm drop and looking down at her lap, and he pursed his lips before saying, “Alright. Whenever you figure it out, let me know, and I’ll stick with that.”

El – Jane – whichever, he would just call her El until he was told otherwise – nodded agreeably and looked back at the photo in his hand, tapping on the image of the woman.

“Found Mama,” she said seriously. “Want to see her.”

“Kid, these newspapers are almost a decade old – whatever you found in here isn’t going to be up to date,” Billy said with a little concern that he masked under the appearance of boredom. He didn’t want her to get her hopes up that this woman was even still _alive_. After apparently disappearing after the break-in, he wouldn’t be surprised if she had actually been killed and the government just covered it up, made it seem like the woman had gone crazy.

“ _No_ ,” El insisted, taking the photo back from him. “Saw her – she is sad.”

“Saw her?” Billy repeated, an unspoken demand for clarification which, even with how unsocialized El was, she still caught on to.

She looked at the newspapers, gesturing to wear they still sat in his lap and next to him on the couch. “Papa did ex-periments. On _me_. Now I can do things, see – people. In the dark place.”

Billy only sort of understood that explanation, and while he could believe that the government pulled some shady shit, he couldn’t wrap his mind around the possibility that what El was implying might be true – that she had some sort of _powers_ because the lab had been successful in their experimentation on a human child.

“You’re trying to tell me you have _powers_ , like this ‘Terry Ives’ was trying to say?” Billy demanded, just barely catching himself before he described El’s mother as the nutjob he thought she was. He could get behind a shady government and sympathize with her there, but he could also understand why no one had believed her, spouting off about things like ‘telekinesis’ that only existed in science fiction.

But El nodded, very assured, and he raised an eyebrow, leaned back in the couch and folded his arms and dared her, “Prove it.”

She gave him a look that he’d never seen on her face before, but one that seemed to fit oddly well – it perfectly communicated the sentiment, _bitch, please_.

And then she looked over at the floor lamp sitting tipped over against the chair, and with a little sideways nod of her head, it was standing up straight. Then she looked at some of the broken glass she’d apparently swept earlier into a small pile, and as blood began to drip from one nostril every shard rose up into the air.

Billy sat up straight, surprised and amazed at this revelation, but he quickly schooled his expression into one of blankness and touched El lightly on the arm to pull her focus from where she stared at the glass.

“Okay, don’t strain yourself,” he told her, a little concerned about the bleeding nose. “I believe you, kid. Shit.”

The glass dropped back to the ground with a tinkling sound, and El looked back at him with an unmistakably smug look, wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve in a familiar motion, if the carelessness with which she did it was any indication.

Billy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah – you told me so, I get it, you little shit.”

“Found Mama,” El said again, looking at him intently. “Want to see her.”

And Billy still didn’t understand the _how_ of that, or what it meant that El could see her in “the dark place”, whatever the hell that was, but he figured he was going to trust the one with the actual powers here and take what she said as true. And if El wanted to see her mom – well, who was Billy to stand in her way?

“Alright, let’s see your mama,” Billy agreed. “I assume that’s the reason you called me was for a ride, so Hopper doesn’t find out?”

“Hopper is busy,” she reported. “He won’t find out.”

And Billy’s lips tightened at that, because why the hell was the closest thing she had to a father figure right now gone so much? He _had_ to know how lonely she got, and clearly rebellion was breaking out because of it.

Honestly, Billy figured a little rebellion for her would be healthy, so he was more than willing to encourage that with something as simple as going to see her mom.

“Alright, you have an address?” he asked her, rising to his feet. She nodded quickly, running over to grab a piece of paper from off the table that held the radio. When she handed it to him, he looked down to see handwriting that looked like it came from a five-year-old on the back of an envelope that must have been junk mail.

Upon seeing the address though, he frowned a little and looked over at her again. “This isn’t a quick trip – this is a couple of hours away. It would be better if we waited till morning.”

El’s face instantly transformed into a frown at him, practically a scowl. “You said – help _any_ time. Friends don’t _lie_.”

Billy put his hands up like he was surrendering, remembering that he had indeed said that just two nights before. He certainly hadn’t expected the request to come so soon though, or for it to be something like _this_. “And I’m willing – really. But it’s already late, and by the time we got there it would be even later. Your mom is going to be in bed, so we would have to come back tonight anyway without seeing her.”

El’s scowl lightened, thankfully, because she already reminded him enough of Max without wearing that facial expression. “We go tomorrow?”

Billy nodded agreeably. “Yeah, kid, we can go tomorrow morning, that alright with you?”

“Six-zero-zero,” El bargained.

Billy balked at the time, because it was Saturday morning, and Neil was gone and not insisting he get out of bed so early and he had been looking forward to taking advantage of that and he opened his mouth to insist on something more _reasonable_ , like ten or eleven –

But then he saw El’s hopeful expression, the wide eyes that reminded him unwillingly of Bambi, and he was hit with the sudden thought that he would be just as desperate for the chance to see _his_ mom again, and time would mean nothing because he would want to go as soon as possible.

So he just heaved a sigh and consented, “Yeah, kid – I’ll be here at six and we’ll go see your mom, alright?”

“Promise?”

Those damned Bambi eyes.

“Promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Holy heck this was a long one. I expected to get to the actual visiting Terry in this, but then Max and Billy's talk/argument in the car insisted on being longer and longer and then the same thing happened when Billy found out about El's powers. Oh, well - hope you enjoyed the fic. ;)
> 
> Also, I really do like Hopper - and Max - even though what I've written for this series so far makes it seem like the opposite. Keep in mind that Billy isn't the most reliable narrator, and this is mostly happening from his point of view. It will get better for both of them in the future - promise. :)
> 
> I live and breathe on your comments. <3


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